January 27, 2023 – Most American adults don't meet physical activity guidelines, the CDC said this week.
Only 24.2% of people that participated within the 2020 National Health Interview Survey met guidelines for each aerobic and muscle-building activities. according to CDCwhile 22.7% met the rules for aerobic activities only and 6.8% met the rules for muscle-strengthening activities only.
According to the CDC, 46.3% of respondents didn't meet the rules for each forms of activities.
CDC Guidelines encourage adults to spend not less than 150 minutes per week doing moderate-intensity aerobic exercise and to lift weights or do other muscle-building exercises not less than 2 days per week.
People in large urban areas were more more likely to adhere to the rules, The CDC also noted:
Among metropolitan residents, 27.8% met each guidelines, 50% met the aerobic exercise guideline, and 35.2% met the muscle training guideline. Among non-metropolitan residents, 16.1% met each guidelines, 38.2% met the aerobic exercise guideline, and 21.1% met the muscle training guideline.
Residents of Western states were more more likely to meet the rules than residents of other regions. 28.5% of residents within the West, 24.4% within the Northeast, 23.4% within the Midwest, and 22% within the South met each guidelines.
The CDC said the federal government should look for methods to get people outside of metropolitan areas to follow physical activity guidelines.
“A paradigm shift is needed at the national level to build structural capacity through investments in human, informational, organizational, financial, and physical resources and to implement policy, systemic, and environmental changes that impact population physical activity across the United States, and especially outside major metropolitan areas,” the CDC said.
The report has limitations, the CDC noted. The data was collected throughout the COVID pandemic, which impacted physical behavior; self-reported physical activity is vulnerable to “recall bias”; and the assessment didn't take into consideration physical activity as a result of transportation or occupation, the federal agency said.